I assume that few members or guests have a copy of The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes. I feel that it is my duty to share some of its delicious contents.

First, full credit: It was edited by Clifton Fadiman. It was published by Little, Brown and Company of Boston and Toronto. I have the 1985 edition.

Second, if anyone has to give a speech, you will probably find something in this book to help make your speech a big success.

Third, reading anecdotes is a wonderful way for my fellow learners to improve their English.

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No. 1

Max Reger (1873 - 1916) was a German musician.

One day Mr. Reger received a very bad review.

Mr. Reger wrote a note to the critic who had written that bad review.

The note read (I guess in German):

"I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me."

________

For beginning and intermediate learners: (1) "The smallest room" in a house = the bathroom / toilet. (2) Mr. Reger is telling the critic that he plans to use the paper (that contains the bad review) in order to .... (well, you know).

Re Dotting: Dear Learners,The four dots stand for "wipe his ass", not "well, you know".Any correction of the writing of others will contain at least one gram., spelling, or typogr. error. - Erin McKean

Joan Crawford (1904 - 1977) was a famous American motion picture actor. (The word "actor" is now used for both males and females.)

1. One beautiful day she decided to walk home instead of riding in her chauffeur-driven car.

2. Her chauffeur was alarmed. He said, "But, madam, you'll be mobbed [your fans will gather around you and you won't be able to continue walking]."

3. Ms. Crawford replied, "I should certainly hope so."

*****

Some celebrities complain that they are bothered by fans. Other celebrities feel as Ms. Crawford did: It's a good thing that they are bothered by fans. It means that they are still popular! In other words, it is a bad day when a celebrity is ignored.

When Mr. Shaw turned 90 years old, a friend complimented him with the words "You're a young-looking ninety."

Mr. Shaw replied: "I look exactly like a man of ninety should look. Everyone else looks older because of the dissolute lives they lead."

*****

Learners: A "dissolute life" means something like the fact that one drinks too much liquor, one eats too much , one just sits around all day watching TV and surfing the Net, and perhaps one has a lot of meaningless adventures in the area of "romance."

Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965) was the famous prime minister of the United Kingdom during World War II.

He explained why he liked to read about the characters in the novels written by Jane Austen (1775 - 1817):

"What calm lives they had, those people! No worries about the French Revolution, or the crashing struggle of the Napoleonic Wars."

(This anecdote does not appear in the book that I mentioned in the first post of this thread. Credit goes to the January 5, 2012, issue of the London Review of Books. Although I do not read novels, I have read that some people have criticized Ms. Austen for ignoring current events in her novels written in the early 1800s. Sir Winston, however, seems to disagree with those critics.)

"Prior to [before] World War I, German emperor Wilhelm II bragged to Dutch queen Wilhelmina that his guardsmen were seven feet tall. The queen, reading between the lines [she knew that he was telling her that tall German soldiers could easily invade her country], answered, 'But when we open our dikes, the waters are ten feet tall.' "

Paavo Nurmi (1897 - 1973). Many people consider him to be the greatest long-distance runner of all time.

"In his later years Nurmi suffered from thrombosis in the brain, a heart attack, partial paralysis on his left side, and blindness in his left eye. Almost to the day he died he walked eight miles a day."

Mr. Parker attended a symphony concert. Unfortunately, he was seated next to some rude people who were talking during the concert. Losing his patience, Mr. Parker said, "Those people on the stage are making such a noise I can't hear a word you're saying."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was often bored by the tedious small talk that was required of him at social functions. He often felt as if those with whom he conversed were seldom paying attention to what was said. To prove his point, sometimes Roosevelt would begin a conversation by saying, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." Often these words were met with polite approval. On one occasion, however, an attentive listener gave the witty reply,

2. He "was on night duty at the Soviet military's early-warning facility outside Moscow on Sept. 26, 1983, when an alarm went off, signaling the launch of several U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles [aimed at the USSR]. [He] had to determine whether the attack was real. He chose to consider it a false alarm, which it was."

3. "The false alarm later was determined to have been caused by a malfunction of the satellite, which mistook the reflection of the sun off high clouds for a missile launch."

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